I was still terrified, though. I did not want to make a wrong move. The first evening was perfect. Dinner, dancing, strolling through Regent’s Park. I did not want to ruin it by suggesting anything improper. I wanted to—oh, God, did I want to!—but I could never have brought myself to ask. I have a small confession to make. Or maybe you have guessed it already. You know, writing this all to you has helped calm my fears somewhat. As long as I still have your letters, a lifeline running to me all the way from Scotland, I will be okay. I told you I brought the book along with me as a lucky charm, but you are my lucky charm. It has been overwhelming to go from living by myself in an isolated cottage to living on a busy block in a wee flat full of children and noise. I am quite dizzy most of the time and seem to have a constant headache from their chatter, but it has been lovely. I was thinking about God today. In the beginning God created a void by withdrawing into himself (contraction), and the void appeared as darkness because God is light. Expanding again as light into the void, God created all the substances of the World. Thus, the World we live in is ruled partly by light (God) and partly by the darkness (the kingdom of the devil). #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

Since everything is of the same nature—that is, a mixture of light and darkness—there are secret sympathies and secret antipathies everywhere, marked by signs which the adept can discover with God’s help. The practice of medicine depends entirely on understanding these forces, as do the practices of chiromancy and astrology. In the past, fear of persecution invited prudence, and some people would not even publish their brilliant books, even though their knowledge proved the superiority of the Moderns. A song works on body, mind, and on whatever intermediate faculties may be between; but it is the text alone which can carry an intellectual content and thus influence the mind. The music, abstracted from its text, can reach no higher than the spirit, i.e. sense and feeling, or at most, through the spirit, the lower parts of the soul, phantasy and imagination. Force denotes the faculty of action or the power to overcomes a resistance. In the physical sciences, it is that entity which changes, or tends to change, the state of rest or of motion of a body. We can capture planetary influences by prayers, either simple or sung with art. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Our spirit is consonant with the Heavenly rays which, occult or manifest, penetrate everything. We can make it still more consonant, if we vehemently direct our affections towards the star from which we wish to receive a certain benefit…above all, if we apply the song and light suitable to the astral deity and also the odour. If communication is to succeed, something which, like sense and coloring, is ordinarily counted as part of the significance of the sound. This is called for force of the sound. In a language that is to express everything we wish to convey, we need some special signs for this element. Some people sing prayers to the Sun. Plato us one of the most ancient of the Greeks and he is considered a symbol of powerful, effect-producing singer; and he was a magician. The conception of musical sound is deemed as a living, spiritual being. Some writers say what they write comes from spirits as they are able to produce work as it moves through them. The World is seen as a living being, whose soul, by means of the stars imprints forms on the sub-lunar World; these are conveyed by cosmic spirit, and, if the form has been imperfectly received owing to the inadequacy of the receiving matter, this imperfection can be corrected by attracting more spirit from the appropriate planet. Like, if you wish to attract solarian gifts, wear colours such as gold, and plant flowers and have a picture of the Sun on your mantle, and sing songs to the physical Sun. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

While the idea of worshiping planets holds great promise, it is also at the same time fraught with grave dangers. Some planet supposedly also have demons attached to them. The Sun is better fitted for uplifting the mind than for securely balancing it. High-strung energy rather than poise seemed to be its natural effect on its votaries. It is believed that the fallen angels are responsible for our free will because they attracted Lucifer to Earth and are the architects for everything we cherish like music, poetry, movies, car, and television shows. My inmost yearning, my purest, though most secret flame, my purest, though most secret flame, my deepest faith and my highest hope—they are still the same as ever, and they all bear one name: the State. One day to build the state like a temple, rising up pure and strong, resting in its own weight, severe and sublime, but also serene like the gods and with and with bright hall glistening in the dancing brilliance of the Sun—this, at bottom, is the end and goal of my aspirations. This kind of magic has many sources. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

The immense importance attributes to astral influences and the immense importance is attributed to astral influence on the human spirit and one’s acceptance of a cosmic or celestial spirit that acquires a soul from the various stars and spheres it passes through during descent into the Earthly body. On this Earth the vehicle, which began by being fine, shinning and star-like, becomes heavy, dark and damp, and, unless purified and rendered more aetheric, it will at death drag down the soul to hell or to some lower incarnation. This conception of the spirit (for the vehicle is historically connected with Aristotelian, medical and Stoic pneumata) would account for its being peculiarly subject to astral influences, since it derives from the stars, and for the great urgency of its purification, since it does not leave the soul at death, but can drag it down or, if light and dry enough, ascend with it. It would, moreover, have a special affinity to the spheres and their harmony, since its proper shape, before entering the physical body, is spherical, and its proper motion is circular. The astral body was for primarily a religious conception—an explanation, a method of approaching God and salvation which are non—intellectual, such as fasting, lustrations, the use of incenses, incantations, excreta. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

To all these practices the astral body corresponds exactly; being corporeal, it can be acted on by similar physical things (vapours, scents, sounds); being the seat of imagination, of the irrational soul, it can be affected by prayers and images; since it survives death, its condition is the utmost importance. Humans are marvelous. They have been able to discover the divine nature and produce it, is admirable beyond all marvels. Our first ancestors, then, when they were in grave error concerning the gods, being incredulous and paying no attention to worship and religion, invented the art of making gods. Having done so, they added a virtue appropriate to it, taken from the World’s nature, and mixed these; since they could not make souls, they evoked the souls of demons or angels, and out them into images with holy and divine rites, so that through these souls the idols might have the power of doing good and evil…terrestrial gods and they have in them a natural divine power. And it is for the following reason that people delight them with frequent sacrifices, with hymns and praises and sweet sounds concerted like the harmony of the Heavens: that this Heavenly thing which has been attracted into the idol by repeated Heavenly rites, may bear joyously with humans and stay with them long. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6